Tags are a form of metadata that describe an item available via a network, such as the Internet. Examples of tags include words or phrases that describe the item. Tags have been used to describe online content, such as articles, music, news reports, video clips, etc. Tags may be used to find items of interest, e.g., by entering one or more keywords into a search box to retrieve items that have a tag that matches one or more of the keywords. In this sense, tags serve as a sort of index of items available via the network.
One difficulty in using tags to help users find online content or other items of interest to them is that it can be hard to find what one is looking for if too many and varied tags are used to describe similar items. A user may enter a number of keywords, but not think to include all of or even any of the particular keywords used as tags for the items for which the user is looking. Likewise, if too restrictive a set of tags is allowed, the tag set may not be sufficient to describe in an accurate and/or intuitive way every item that it might be desired and/or useful to tag, and the tags made available for use may not be the ones a user would be most likely to use to find items of interest to the user.
Therefore, there is a need for a way to tag content or other items available online in a manner that better ensures that a user searching for items of interest to the user will be able to use the tag(s) to find the desired items.